Great explanation of your thoughts. It taught me a lot about an aspect of a service I hadn't thought too deeply about.
I certainly get your sentiments, but overall I think Spotify is probably doing the best thing for their business the way the algorithm works now. How they control randomness now seems to satisfy a vast majority of their user base. Those who dislike the current algorithm probably complain disproportionately loud (like this entire blog post) for the number of folks who truly dislike it.
I don't think it is the right product decision to create more options, most of the time. There certainly are use cases for options, but those come at a cost. Not only is there an on going development cost with the increased complexity, but there is also a usability cost. Spotify specifically has done a great job of trimming down their UI to be the bare essentials. I still remember when there was a built in addon marketplace in the app.
Adding these settings probably does not warrant a large enough ROI to persue. I mean look at yourself, you clearly care a lot about this feature, but is that going to lead you to a new streaming music application? Probably not.
Also, you made the comparison of wanting switching playlists to work like switching radio stations, but those are even less random even in the most free and indie stations. I use to be a music director for a large college radio station, and we scheduled our music, for when no one was DJing, with weighted randomness.
I'd be curious how other streaming music platforms handle shuffling.
As a side note, the political jab in your post is a bit unfounded and unappreciated. I think dev.to should be mostly free of political friction. Clearly that isn't a true rule, as everything is political now adays, but blatant things like your Republican comment I think should be discouraged.
Life is Strange 2 had the greatest response I've ever heard to a heartfelt gripe about how talking about politics messes so much stuff up. (The "stuff", in this case, being two boys' lives in a Seattle suburb with their father, whose own life was decidedly less messed-up in the moments before he was no longer alive, compared to how his life goes throughout the rest of the game, which is not at all.)
Kid, everything is politics.
— Brody, Life is Strange 2
That out of the way, I would be remiss if I didn't also spurn this particular political reference of Republicans' handling of civil rights, when Democrats have historically been all too willing to uphold decorum before observing humanity
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Great explanation of your thoughts. It taught me a lot about an aspect of a service I hadn't thought too deeply about.
I certainly get your sentiments, but overall I think Spotify is probably doing the best thing for their business the way the algorithm works now. How they control randomness now seems to satisfy a vast majority of their user base. Those who dislike the current algorithm probably complain disproportionately loud (like this entire blog post) for the number of folks who truly dislike it.
I don't think it is the right product decision to create more options, most of the time. There certainly are use cases for options, but those come at a cost. Not only is there an on going development cost with the increased complexity, but there is also a usability cost. Spotify specifically has done a great job of trimming down their UI to be the bare essentials. I still remember when there was a built in addon marketplace in the app.
Adding these settings probably does not warrant a large enough ROI to persue. I mean look at yourself, you clearly care a lot about this feature, but is that going to lead you to a new streaming music application? Probably not.
Also, you made the comparison of wanting switching playlists to work like switching radio stations, but those are even less random even in the most free and indie stations. I use to be a music director for a large college radio station, and we scheduled our music, for when no one was DJing, with weighted randomness.
I'd be curious how other streaming music platforms handle shuffling.
As a side note, the political jab in your post is a bit unfounded and unappreciated. I think dev.to should be mostly free of political friction. Clearly that isn't a true rule, as everything is political now adays, but blatant things like your Republican comment I think should be discouraged.
Life is Strange 2 had the greatest response I've ever heard to a heartfelt gripe about how talking about politics messes so much stuff up. (The "stuff", in this case, being two boys' lives in a Seattle suburb with their father, whose own life was decidedly less messed-up in the moments before he was no longer alive, compared to how his life goes throughout the rest of the game, which is not at all.)
— Brody, Life is Strange 2
That out of the way, I would be remiss if I didn't also spurn this particular political reference of Republicans' handling of civil rights, when Democrats have historically been all too willing to uphold decorum before observing humanity